Joe Commoner, and his BIG AXE!!!

[catsclaw]

Typically, chickens are killed by snapping the neck with bare hands.

My grandmother did it by cutting off the head with a hatchet and then trapping the body under a bucket.

I was under the impression that axes were generally used, otherwise we wouldn't have had Mike the Headless Wonder Chicken.

 

[DM_Blake]

Bow and arrow used to be a classic in Scandinavia. The peasants ran to the woods and killed the soldiers that tried to get them there.

In an organized battle they brought spears most often. Another weapon that is cheap and easy to use. The reach was very good when facing other unarmored opponents and if peasants faced trained enemy footmen they were toast whether they used spears or axes. The spear was also good if you got large predators about.

Excellent point (no pun intended).

While the conversation revolved around a limited selection of weapons and my reponse was my take on how a commoner would most likely choose which weapon to use from that limited selection, your point is valid.

There is a reason why most peasant militias used spears, and you've hit on it: give a peasant any weapon and face him off one-against-one with a trained soldier or experienced battle veteran, and his chances are slim indeed.

But, spears have "reach" and, even in the real world, several peasants side by side could all threaten one single veteran. Pack your peasants closely together, with a bristling hedgehog of spears, and it's tough for enemy soldires to reach them with swords or axes.

It levels the playing field, or battle field, just a little.

And spears are cheap.

Although, spears aren't as likely to be just laying around the farm as axes are.

 

[Umbran]

one would assume that any one handed weapon could be used two handed.

Because so many folks out there went around swinging daggers with two hands?

Okay, maybe you could, but it isn't adding to the weapon's effectiveness. Whether it can be used that way, and whether anyone would ever want to are not the same thing

 

[Nytmare]

Seriously though, swords are the only weapons whose only use is as weaponry.

I beg to differ!

There are also those swords that are used as compensation. For other areas. Where you might be lacking.

 

[med stud]

Although, spears aren't as likely to be just laying around the farm as axes are.

Yesterday I read about one time in the early 1600s when Sweden and Denmark was about to go to war. The Danish king sent out a demand for all peasants to bring either a arquebus (I don't know the English word for "bössa", I guess it's arquebus) or a spear. If they didn't have a spear, the king sent instructions how to make one.

Now this was a time when Denmark lagged behind in the military department, most countries had semi-professional armies at that time but if you knew as a peasant that you had to bring one of those two weapons, it would make sense to have a real spear around just in case.

Your comments about spears being good when the bearers are bunched up: that is also a selling point for peasant levies to use spears. The hard part is to keep non-professionals in formation when they move and to keep them from running when they are attacked. But that has nothing to do with the spears

 

[Cactot]

thrusting weapons such as the spear are also extra easy to use with a shield, which are both extremely cheap and easy to make and increase survivability exponentially. Infact, i would put my money on a unarmored spear + medium/large shield warrior over a light/medium armored shield-less warrior (unless that warrior was using a flail... those things are bitches against shield users) given equal training.

The dynamic changes with the advent of armor that can easily stop a spear thrust (eg. plate armor). I have always wondered about the popularity of the sword, historically it was more of a status symbol in most cultures than a true battle weapon. Most successful western armies based their foundation on either spears (pretty much every melee army in history) or axes (for example the francicsa, which france is named after). The big exception is Rome who's soldiers focused on shield+gladius, though they still relied on spears for a variety of purposes also. The celts (whom the romans got the gladius from) and the vikings were also known for their swords, but their armies were not typically composed primarily of sword users. The Japanese are also extremely well known for their swords, but ironically the samurai had their origins as horse archers, not swordsmen. Also, even through the samurai period the conscript armies that made up most of the military were armed with spears and polearms rather than swords.

 

[Cactot]

Yesterday I read about one time in the early 1600s when Sweden and Denmark was about to go to war. The Danish king sent out a demand for all peasants to bring either a arquebus (I don't know the English word for "bössa", I guess it's arquebus) or a spear. If they didn't have a spear, the king sent instructions how to make one.

Interesting, if that is indeed the correct translation, it suprises me that a significant amount of danish peasants had access to firearms, even primitive ones.

 

[Voss]

Also (just thought of this) wouldn't most farmers have some experience with using an axe to kill things? How does your average medieval farmer kill his chickens, pigs, or cows? (I know you don't usually kill the cows, but humor me.) I don't know, I'm wondering what the usual method was. I would imagine an axe, that makes the most sense to me.

So, in that case, perhaps a commoner using their slaughtering axe or cleaver in battle would be far more appropriate than the 3.5 usual of a dagger or club.

Maybe. But it should be noted that some folks developed some really specialized tools for killing cows. There are some bizarre instruments involving springs developed in the 18th century that essentially drive a spike into the animal's brain. It was basically a device to one shot a cow, rather than try to put an axe through the thick skull.

But a wood chopping axe wouldn't be odd. A battle axe is a different sort of tool, however.
But knives, pitchforks, wood axes, scythes, mattocks, shovels, its all appropriate. A shovel or mattock scares me a lot more than anything else on that list, and they are fairly common to farms.

 

[Cactot]

i can understand being scared by a mattock/pick, but i would MUCH rather be hit by a shovel than a wood axe. Maybe thats just me, either one could kill you pretty easy though.

 

[med stud]

Interesting, if that is indeed the correct translation, it suprises me that a significant amount of danish peasants had access to firearms, even primitive ones.

Yeah fire arms weren't that uncommon. There are lots of wood in Southern Sweden (at the time Eastern Denmark) and rifles were good against predators and brigands. I also suppose many former soldiers brought their firearms home after a campaign.

The interesting thing is that equipping an army with arquebuses weren't the expensive part, it was the plate armor for the pikemen. The pikemen were also the main offense of a foot unit at the time; the standard army in the late 1500s consisted of a center of pikemen with "musketeers" (they didn't have muskets, strictly speaking) at the flanks. The musketeers softened up the enemy infantry and when the enemy looked weak enough from the fire, the pikemen attacked. If the pike attack was successful, the musketeers drew their swords and attacked too.

One Swedish king was too cheap to equip the army with pikemen, that meant that the Swedish infantry couldn't mount an effective offense. Lack of pikes also made the infantry very vulnerable to cavalry. The savings made from not buying pikes and armour were lost when the Polish cavalry annihalated the Swedes in Balthicum.